Wonderful Readers' Top Picks for 2011

As the sun sets on 2011, sit back and enjoy your top 12 picks at The Turning of Generations for this past year. According to Google Analytics these are the most viewed posts this year, so they really are the top pick of my Wonderful Readers.

1. Using Land Records to Solve Genealogical Problems. This particular series was about William Ballenger's Military Warrant file. Several individual posts in this series made the top 10 so I've combined this into one selection pointing you to the summary post which has links to the individual posts in the series. I was surprised this was so popular and I think we partly have Randy Seaver to thank for highlighting it in his weekly Best of the Genea-Blogs.
2. Metadata, Image Files and Migration. Something we will want to think more about with some of our projects this coming year for The 21st Century Organized Family Historian (see #8 below). Nira Porter Chambliss of The Door Keepers provided a link in the comments to a really helpful article.
3. 98th  Edition of COG - Document Analysis! Bessie Maud Passmore Birth Certificate. This post was actually published in October 2010 and for some reason continues to remain high on the hit list with readers. I did go a little overboard with my creative use of metaphor but why it's so popular is a mystery to me. Maybe there are a lot of Passmore researchers out there? Thanks go to Jasia, and her Carnival of Genealogy, for providing the topic for a popular post and one that has put me in contact with a distant cousin.
4. Mt. St. Helens Eruption - Disasters. A topic that surely is high in search hits, this was part of Amy Coffin's (We Tree Blog) 2011 series, 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History.
5. How Do You Organize Your Blog Reading? A topic I still am tinkering with, I'm glad it generated interest.
6. When is it OK to Throw an Old Photo Away? Sorting Saturday. There was some excellent discussion in the comments on this post and I suspect we will continue to ponder and discuss it in the New Year (see #8 below).
7. A Look at a Cash Entry Land File - The Summary. I'm pleased you Wonderful Readers have taken an interest in land files. It's a topic I'm finding very interesting and productive as far as making progress in my research. I haven't yet covered the ever popular Homestead Files. Look for that series in 2012. I'm putting a different spin on it.
8. Introducing the 21st Century Organized Family Historian (#21COFH). I am shocked, pleased, humbled and a little intimidated to see that this one post in the last few days of 2011 made the top 12 for the year! There has been a debate raging in my mind for the last several months as to whether or not to do this series as I wasn't sure if there would really be much interest. Considering that this one post generated an all time high in daily hits to The Turning of Generations, I would say there is some pent up interest in the community! My hope (besides getting this family archival mess straightened up) is that we all can learn from each other by going through this process. Let's get it done!
9. Treasure Chest Thursday - The Time Capsule - Part 2. This series is from 2010 and while I'm not sure why this one post from the series popped up as number 9 but I'm really glad. Examining and preserving the contents of a suitcase of my great grandmother, Frances Lowe, was a favorite project. I've updated the post to include links to the other articles in the series.
10. The Green 1964 Chevy Impala. This was another 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History, the topic of which was - cars. Classic cars are always fun.
11. COG-Scrapbooking Your Family History! Frances Lowe Another  Carnival of Genealogy topic, scrapbooking of any kind is always fun.
12. Progress on the Archival Closet on Sorting Saturday. This is the perfect post to end your list of top choices from 2011. Progress has been made! More progress will occur in 2012. I think I see an Archival Room in my future!

Have a safe and Happy New Year!

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Next Steps in the Archival Closet on Sorting Saturday

Last week I shared progress that has been made with the Archival Closet. This week I'd like to share with you the next step taken over the summer. There were still many boxes of documents in the Family Home that had to be removed and sorted through when we put the house on the market. Here was my crash course procedure. The objective was twofold:

1. Reduce the volume of documents, cards and photos.
2. Get a basic organizational scheme going so that I could merge the additions into the collection I already have at home.

My hope is that if you are dealing with boxes and boxes a large collection of family papers, photos, and other heirlooms, this will in some way be of assistance to you.

Step One - Supplies - whatever was on hand from the house: old file folders, boxes, folder trays, etc. I did not worry about archival quality at this point.

Step Two - One box at a time, quickly examine each folder, envelope full of papers or whatever. Keep or discard? Try really, really hard not to get sucked into reminiscing at this point. It's hard...

Step Three - If the item is a keeper, which family member(s) does it relate to?

Step Four - If there isn't a box, or portion of a box already dedicated to this individual, set one up.

Step Five - What is the topic of these documents? Get a file folder, if the documents aren't already in one, and put a label on the folder with the topic. At this point, since I'm using mostly old file folders, I either would write directly on the tab of the folder or write on a sticky note and attach that to the folder tab.

Step Six - File the item in the appropriate person's box.

After a while, I started running across documents for which I already had a folder. So into the folder the new documents went.

Box after box went through this process and after a while, the volume began to decrease since not everything was worth keeping, and a very rudimentary organizational scheme began to emerge.

Here is one of the boxes that hasn't yet made it home. No, it's not pretty. Everything most certainly will not be kept but in order to determine what to ultimately save we have to get "like things together" to see the big picture.

The next step is to incorporate these files into the Archival Closet using archival safe - acid free, lignin free supplies - and continuing to cull as I sort. There is a deadline too: Thanksgiving. You see all these boxes are being stored in Oldest Daughter's room. They have got to be cleared out before said daughter comes home for Thanksgiving!



© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Progress on the Archival Closet on Sorting Saturday

Last spring I did some organizing in the Archival Closet. You can do this too! Basically, I was trying to get the beginnings of an organizational scheme going and remove the collection from those ancient, nasty cardboard boxes they had been living in for the past several decades. For the most part, I used archival quality (acid free, lignin free) materials: boxes, file folders and file folder inserts. However, I did run out of boxes so I had to improvise temporarily.

Here are before and after pictures:

It's not perfect but it's a start and I am actually able to find some things now. The process of sorting and organizing also caused a number of very cool discoveries.

In order to be flexible (after all this is an evolving system), I used a lot of post it notes to indicate what is inside each box and also to note if there are items in need of triage. This way, as I add more material, it will be easy to rearrange the labels.

Here's a peek at the inside. My mantra has been "put like things together." I say that over and over and over. As more materials surface, that's what I do. Eventually, I will be able to do a better job of labeling after all of the like things are together and do a final sort.

The labels are not neat and orderly since this is an evolving system. The file folders and folder inserts are archival quality. The post it notes and card stock are not but for now they give the flexibility I need to add to the collection.

So, progress is being made! While the Family Papers are not in a completely perfect situation, they are in a much better way than they were a few months ago. The Archival Closet is the perfect place to store the collection as it is an interior closet, dark and in a room that actually stays at a pretty constant (and pleasant) temperature year round. Not perfect but certainly much improved.

Next up is the process of integrating the new additions to the collection.

Smart Phones on Sorting Saturday

About a week ago, I posted asking for advice on which "Smart" phone to purchase. A few days ago, I took a deep breath, the list of suggestions and recommendations from my readers, and Youngest Child, before heading down to our Verizon store. I have to admit that when I began this journey, I really wanted an iphone. In the end, these factors influenced my final decision.

• Availability of 4G network on the device. Since this is the future and I hear it is much faster than 3G, I decided that this was a must have. Right off the bat the iphone and Windows phones were eliminated since Verizon does not have them with 4G. Had to think about this for a few days because I really wanted that iphone. Sorry Tracy (The Pieces of My Past), I was with you on the iphone!
• Address the battery life issue with the various Droids. Several of you pointed this out which got my attention. Thank you for the tip:
• Susan Clark - Nolichucky Roots
• Claudia's Genealogy Blog
• Nira Porter Chambliss - The Door Keepers
• Karen (sorry, I couldn't find a blog)
• Camera Quality. Since I love photography, a good camera is a must.
• Ability to sync the calendar on the phone with my Outlook calendar on my laptop. This is really important to me and it appears that I should be able to address it by picking out the right ap. I took a little leap of faith and made the assumption I would be able to get it worked.

Barbara (Life From the Roots), I hope you found this  and everyone's comments helpful. I sure did.

Hold on to your hats, next I'll tell you what happened when I went into the Verizon store to make my final decision.

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

When is it OK to Throw an Old Photo Away? - Sorting Saturday

Several days ago Nolichucky Roots called my attention to a fantastic article over at a blog that is new to me called ArchivesInfo. The title of the article is Culling Family Photographs and it has some wonderful tips on that subject.

One sentence really caught my attention because it's something I really struggle with.

If an old image sits around for years and nobody can be found who knows anything about it, do you really need to keep it? (No)

An accurate statement, in my opinion. But how many years does it take before you decide to toss an old photo? How hard to you look for that somebody, somewhere who knows about that old picture? How hard and long do you look for that piece of information, that tiny clue to open the story of the photo? The answer is going to vary from person to person. So what are some of the factors that play into answering this question? Here are a few that I came up with.

1. How important is the picture to you? How important do you think it might be?
2. What other items or photos are with the picture that you found that could potentially provide clues?
3. Is there anyone living in your family who might know something or someone that could give you the answers you seek or at least some leads?
4. How many items like this do you have?
5. How much room do you have to store these types of items?
6. How much time and effort do you want (or are able) to put into your search?
7. How broadly do you want to search? Immediate family? Extended family? Message boards? Historical Societies?
8. Is there anyother family member who would like to have the photos?

How have you handled the issue of orphan photos? What do you consider to be important considerations in decided what to keep and how long to keep it?

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Rescue From The "Chemical Sandwich of Doom" on Sorting Saturday

During a recent sorting episode, an album turned up in the Family Home. Husband and I were the star subjects as it was an album of snapshots from our wedding day, taken by the unofficial photographer (aka Dad)! I gasped in horror when I opened the album and saw what was inside. The pictures were neatly arranged in one of those horrible sticky "magnetic" albums that we now know are dangerous for our beloved photographs. Hence the name, Chemical Sandwich of Doom, given by one of my favorite archivists, Sally Jacobs, The Practical Archivist. (You can read even more about the Chemical Sandwich of Doom here.)

I decided to try out my new Flip Pal on this album. So one evening while watching TV, I carefully removed the pictures one by one, scanned them using the Flip Pal, and placed them in a new archival safe album. When the scanning was done, it was easy to load the pictures onto my laptop, in one batch, using the following filename format:

LastName_GroomBride_YYY-MM-DD_wedding

As a side note, I also found a "Mother's Album" containing pictures from the same day whose materials were much friendlier to photos than the Chemical Sandwich of Doom. You could definitely see the difference in the condition of the pictures between the two albums.

Another rescue mission accomplished.


© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Holiday Greeting Cards - Sorting Saturday

Photo by Michelle Goodrum

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum One of the last things to be put away from the holidays are the greeting cards. I've decided it's time to become brutally selective about which ones we save.  You see, I still haven't finished sorting through the years and years of greeting cards my parents received and I don't want to have to go through this again in future years with our holiday cards. Or put my children through this.

Using lessons learned from sorting Mom and Dad's cards, here's my criteria for becoming a candidate for the Goodrum Greeting Card Archives:

• It's from family.
• There is a photo.
• There is a note or holiday letter.
• It's from close family friends (especially those my children know).
• If it meets more than one of the above criteria, the item has a far better chance of being retained.

It's hard to do. I mean, for years I too just kept all of our holiday cards but no more. After all, sooner or later someone has to sort through and toss them. The cards, letters and photos that truly are gems have a greater chance of standing out and being saved by future generations if the pile being sorted is smaller.

Sorting Saturday - What To Do With Ancestors Who Aren't Your Ancestors

Sometimes in our research we come across multiple individuals with the same name, born about the same time in the same area. It becomes necessary to be able to distinguish between these people in order to sort out "our" ancestor from the rest. It's also necessary to keep those records organized and available for future reference when we inevitably need to refer to them once again.

When I was analyzing Bessie Passmore's birth certificate, I discovered 3 Thomas Passmore's (Bessie's father) who were born in Ohio in the same time frame as "my" Thomas Passmore. According to Bessie's birth certificate, her father was born in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.

I noticed on several of Ancestry's Family Trees that various people have connected the Thomas who is in my line with the families of these other Thomas's. Also, I've already been asked by one relative what I thought about Thomas being in one of those lines.

Just to be sure of my logic, I followed these other men through the federal census where it quickly became obvious they couldn't be a match into my family line. It occurs to me that, sometime in the future, I may need to explain my logic in detail. So I've saved my worksheets in order to be able to review them with an interested researcher.

But now where to store this information? Do I keep it with "my" Thomas Passmore? Or store it separately in a "Not My Passmore" file? I'm leaning toward storing digitized copies only in a separate "Not My Passmore" file.

What do you do with similar information?

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - You've Got Mail!

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum Most of us have heard the saying, "You've Got Mail!" As genealogists and family historians that saying takes on a whole new meaning. In our endeavors to document our work, we collect not only photos, letters, birth certificates, and all sorts of other paper documents but also the electronic kind. That includes email.

Mine is out of control. Mainly it's because I haven't been able to decide what to do with it. You see, several years ago, I had this system. All of my mail came into Outlook Express. I would save the email, along with any attachments, as an Outlook Express file in whatever family folder on my computer was appropriate. That worked pretty well although I did worry that someday I might not be able to open the Outlook Express file due to changes in technology. So I would also save it as a .txt file. There was a problem with that however, in that if there had been an attachment to the email neither the attachment nor the name of the attached file was saved in the .txt format. I figured between the 2 systems I was probably OK. And I was. Until my hard drive crashed...

Most of my stuff was backed up so it was just a big hassle. However, we decided going forward to leave our email "in the cloud" with our Internet Service Provider. It's easier that way since we access our email from different computers. But what to do with the genealogy email? I really prefer to save those with the rest of my genealogy files.

In the last several years since that hard drive crash, I've just been accumulating those genealogy related emails in a family folder "in the cloud" that is my ISP. Ugh! I need to do something, anything!

Recently, someone (I'm sorry I can't remember who) suggested saving emails as PDF files. That way, the file can be saved with the rest of my genealogy files and if there were any attachments, the file name for the attachment is preserved within the body of the email. PDF has become so standard that it, hopefully, is unlikely to go away. At least not anytime soon... The best part is that it should be E-A-S-Y to do.

Just to be safe, maybe I'll save them as .txt files too...

I'm curious, how do you handle your genealogy related email files?

Photo by Nieve44/La Luz

Sorting Saturday - Resource Files

Somewhere back in my early days of genealogy research someone, or more likely several some ones, advised me to set up resource files for places and special interest topics. This would have been before the days when there was much available on the internet to "bookmark" or download, which is what I do now as opposed to saving paper. Still, I have all these files full of old paper resources.

Last night I was filing a couple of things (specifically my French and German Word Lists from the Family History Library) when it became apparent the Resources Section of the file drawer desperately needed to be cleaned out. OK, it's True Confession Time: the drawer was so full I couldn't stuff those two documents into the France and Germany folders!

I really didn't want to spend my evening cleaning out a file drawer; I was just trying to file 2 little words lists for crying out loud! I remembered an organizing tip I learned a while back. It goes something like this: when the file drawer gets too full, pick the fattest file and clean it out right then.

The fattest file was about 4 inches thick: the Forms file, blank ones. Most of these forms, or ones similar, can be found online and downloaded. So, I kept a few favorite forms that I use regularly, kept one copy of the others that I might use, and recycled the rest. When I am so inclined, I will scan the master of those forms I really think I will use and recycle the paper. I love forms but how many iterations of a Research Log does a genealogist need? I mean I designed my own a long time ago!

The French and German word lists are now filed but there are still some other pretty fat files in that drawer. I suspect many of those paper resources can now be found online so even more real estate could be freed up in this particular file drawer. What’s hiding in your paper files?

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - Organizing Research Documents

I'm taking the Family Tree University course, "Organize Your Genealogy: Get Your Research in Order (and Keep It That Way)" taught by Nancy Hendrickson. This week I chose to organize all of my "unprocessed" research that has been accumulating. You know, the stuff from the last trip to Salt Lake City, those death certificates I ordered but haven't entered into my database, the census records downloaded from Ancestry, and the list goes on. I seem to find documents faster than I can analyze and process them.

The first step was to gather up all of the piles and bins of semi-organized documents (I'm sure more will turn up). Next I spent a couple of hours doing a quick sort by surname and in some cases locality. Fortunately, I had been organizing and sorting in spurts along the way so the pile wasn't a complete disorganized mess. The problem I have is that life gets in the way and the half organized papers get stuffed in a pile somewhere and forgotten.

I had a file drawer in the room where I work that would be a perfect place to house these papers, so I cleaned it out and threw most of the stuff away. Yeah!! Using the advice of my daughter's fourth grade teacher that "the brain loves color," I decided to color code the files by my four grandparents' lines and file by surname within those four colors.

Hopefully with these files within easy reach of my workspace, I will make some good progress on processing the results of some of my research.


© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - Inventory of Genealogy Lectures

I keep reading that one should keep a list of all of the family history/genealogy related books so as to avoid making duplicate purchases. As I was reviewing the FGS 2010 lectures that are now available on JAMB, it occurred to me the other day that it might be a good idea to do the same with genealogy lectures.

At first I didn't think I had purchased enough to make it worth my while to put together a list. Then I remembered all of the lectures I purchased from Lulu.com from the 2006 FGS Boston conference. I started a list.

As it turns out, I have purchased more than 80 lectures over the years to while away the time on the treadmill and while toting kids to and fro. And yes, there are some that I almost ordered again so I am glad I was able to avoid ordering duplicates.

I made a simple Excel spreadsheet with columns for Lecturer, Title and Conference. Since it's in Excel, it's easy to change how it's sorted. I'll be making an Excel list for my genealogy books too. Right now that list is on a piece of notebook paper.


© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - An Organizing System for Slides

[© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum] In the last Sorting Saturday post, I talked about the hundreds, if not thousands, of slides belonging to my grandparents and parents that I am now housing. Grandpa's organizational "system" was pretty loose, unlike Dad's; so I decided to come up with one myself.

As an example, in looking at the brown metal case in last week's post, I was able to discover an arrangement of the slide trays by date, so I numbered them accordingly. Those numbers transferred over to the new bin the slides were moved to.

So each little box of slides now has a number that looks something like this:

1.A.10

• The number 1 is for the number of the box the slides are in now.
• The capital letter A is for the box that the slides came from (the brown metal box). I have a list of all the slide descriptions that were in that box (see below).
• The number 10 is the new bin that the roll of slides is in. These slides were from a roll labeled "Disneyland." If the slides from that roll wouldn't have all fit in one bin, I would have numbered them 10a and 10b.

If I were to notice something particular about the roll of slides, such as an approximate time frame or subject, I would make a note of it in my notes using square brackets like this: [  ]

As I inventory and move the slides to their new, space efficient, archivally safe, and friendly home, all of my notes will go with the new boxes of slides. This should help down the road after the slides have been culled and I start digitizing them.

Sorting Saturday - Hundreds & Hundreds of Slides

As I mentioned in my last Sorting Saturday post A Hoarder's Paradise, the Archival Closet is getting rather full. As the Family Archivist, one of my missions is to have an efficiently organized area where our family history can be accessed and enjoyed. So I took a break from sorting the family papers (both those in the Archival Closet and those more recently acquired). A way to quickly clear up some space without getting rid of anything had been spotted.

We are a family of amateur photographers: grandfather, father and daughter. Now that three generations of pictures are together under one roof, I noticed that dad and grandpa (particularly grandpa) liked to store their slides in those trays that could be fed through a slide projector. One roll of 24 or 36 slides takes up a significant amount of space in one of those trays. We have dozens and dozens of trays.

So I purchased a couple of archivally safe slide storage systems to move some of the slides into, came up with an organizational scheme and began moving slides. In just a short time here's what happened:

The contents of the two metal boxes in the back and the 3 slide trays moved into the two blue boxes in front. Each of those boxes holds around 360 slides so I've got about 700 or so slides in a space that is less than a half of the space they were taking up before. When I have time, I can pull out one of many slide viewing devices that have been absconded from the family home and view and cull the slide collection down to something even more manageable!

Here's what's left to be "containerized" into a more space friendly, archivally safe storage situation:

As you can see there are a lot of trays and the burgundy container, the two tone brown case, and the gray case also contain slide trays. The two blue boxes in the upper right corner are the slides that are already done. So there will be a lot of space freed up just by changing the housing for this portion of the family slide collection. Even more will be free once some culling has taken place. We could really have some family fun by pulling out one of the old slide projectors, looking at pictures and sorting at the same time...

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - A Hoarder's Paradise

A hoarder's paradise is what our guest room has started to look like since I began sorting through the Archival Closet. You see, new treasures of all kinds keep making their way into the guest room as they are discovered in the course of cleaning out the Family Home. They get piled in a very orderly fashion on the guest bed. In the meantime the contents of the Archival Closet, which is also located in the guest room, are being sorted on the guest room floor and other parts of the house. So between all of this "stuff" and the archival materials that have been purchased to house this collection, we I have a bit of a mess on our my hands!

The other day, Husband went into said guest room, looked around, came back out and said it was starting to look like the TV show Hoarders (ouch)! Well, maybe not quite that bad but he does have a point. I mean, if we were to have unexpected company, there would be some major scrambling (and panic) to get that room in order.

So, the Sorting Saturday mission was to get the top of the bed cleared off. As in find permanent homes in the files, or wherever, for those items. Done. Mostly. At least now someone can sleep in there.

Slowly the documents and artifacts are making their way into their new homes in boxes labelled according to family. It's a slow and sometimes painful process but we are getting there.

What I am now beginning to realize is that all of this "stuff" is not going to fit in the Archival Closet. So the next challenge is to figure out a way to utilize the limited space in the Archival Closet more efficiently. Stay tuned.

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday – Postcard Album

Collecting postcards seems to be a timeless hobby. My great grandmother saved cards sent to her and purchased them in her travels. My grandparents and parents saved postcards and I can’t resist doing it. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a postcard received or purchased from another part of the world or down the street, people can’t resist the urge to save those cards with interesting pictures or artwork. I found it interesting that in the NGS Exhibitor's Hall this past April, the busiest booth on my first pass through the hall, was one with boxes and boxes of vintage postcards. This week’s selection from the Archival Closet was my grandmother’s postcard album which I am told is one of several she had that were ultimately distributed among family members.

Being that the album is nearly 100 years old, it’s not in the best of shape, and it’s not the most wonderful place to safely store those vintage postcards, I decided to disassemble the album and place the postcards into clear pages designed for photographs of the same size as postcards. One great thing about this set up is that the backside of the postcard can be viewed and read without having to remove the postcard to do so. The other advantage is that these clear pages have the exact same layout as the original album allowing me to preserve the original order of the collection. Eventually I may opt for storing them in a card file type box but for now while I know the postcards will be handled, read, and transcribed this seems like the best situation.

This week’s mini project from archival closet was a simple and pleasant one; and a nice reprieve from the massive and daunting challenge that waits.


© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - The Archival Closet

A while back The Family Curator did some spring cleaning which I joined in on. One day I did some preliminary work on the Archival Closet. This is what it looked like:

I'm not going to show you all of the other boxes scattered around or the piles on the guest bed...

I've finally started sorting through some of these boxes. Folks, this is going to get ugly, very ugly. There's a lot of boxes and a lot of stuff in those boxes. For the first box I tried to pick one that would be easy (and it also was only partially full so I sort of cheated). It was a mixture of photos of various sizes, negatives, travel brocures, estate papers of my great grandfather's, and the list goes on.

I've set up several boxes, one for larger photos, another for smaller photos and negatives, a manuscript box, and one for stuff that doesn't really seem to go anywhere. I've got dividers with the surnames pertinent to Dad's side of the family which is who all these boxes go with.

I have to do this in short bursts because I become overwhelmed really fast. It takes a lot to overwhelm me! I'll update you along the way...

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - The Time Capsule is Sorted. What I Learned.

Alas, it's time for the Time Capsule project to come to an end for now. This has been a fun project which has given me a glimpse into the life of my great grandmother Frances Lowe who lived from 1871 to 1964.

I have learned a little more about Frances as a person. Namely that she was a certified school teacher in both her birth state of Colorado and in Montana. Her teacher certificates must have been very important to her, to keep them (and in such good condition!) from the early to mid 1890s until her death in 1964. (Click here and here to see them).

Frances loved to work with her hands and I've been blessed with several of her creations: her crocheted doilies, the hand sewn and beautifully embroidered dress.

Due to Frances' love of her family, I've learned and obtained several genealogically valuable documents. There are the numerous birth announcements of her grandchildren and great grandchildren (they even still are in the envelope they arrived in); original sources containing primary information and direct evidence of birth and parentage. Also the family photos, graduation announcements, letters from friends and family, and the list goes on.

Frances' belongings and these posts are now safely preserved so that hopefully someone in the future can enjoy them too. I imagine the Time Capsule will be revisited from time to time as we learn more about Frances and her family.

Here are links to the other posts in this series as well as a couple of related articles:

The Time Capsule
First Steps
The Time Capsule's Top Layer
Part 2
Teacher's Certificate
Teacher's Certificate #2
Baby Shoes
Sewing Anyone?
Help! Do You Know What This Is?
Frances' Necklace
A Bottle of???
Embroidery
More Stuff To Sort
Doilies
Pictures, Announcements, etc.
Dress
Pictures, Announcements, etc.
Preserving the Time Capsule
Sorting Saturday - The Time Capsule is Sorted. What I learned.
COG-Scrapbooking Your Family History! Frances Lowe
Treasure Chest Thursday-You Are My Treasures

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - Time Capsule - Pictures, Announcements, etc.

Last Saturday, I wrote about all the the photographs, birth, marriage, graduation and other announcements in great grandmother, Frances Lowe's Time Capsule. I was in a bit over my head with some of them since I didn't have a clue who some of those folks were. Happily, I had great results this week from some of the older members of the family who were able to not only identify most of those people, but also add some interesting stories and tidbits.

So I've been busy this week with scanning, emailing and entering data into my genealogy data base (stories too). The pictures and other items are all in acid free, lignin free and PAT passed envelopes. The envelopes are appropriately labelled and filed in a similar quality box.

Now I'm printing off the emails and trying to figure out a way to get them saved on my computer (all of my emails are "in the cloud").

Next week, I'll write about properly storing the physical items from the Time Capsule. That has been a more challenging part of this project.

Here are links to the other posts in this series as well as a couple of related articles:

The Time Capsule
First Steps
The Time Capsule's Top Layer
Part 2
Teacher's Certificate
Teacher's Certificate #2
Baby Shoes
Sewing Anyone?
Help! Do You Know What This Is?
Frances' Necklace
A Bottle of???
Embroidery
More Stuff To Sort
Doilies
Pictures, Announcements, etc.
Dress
Pictures, Announcements, etc.
Preserving the Time Capsule
Sorting Saturday - The Time Capsule is Sorted. What I learned.
COG-Scrapbooking Your Family History! Frances Lowe
Treasure Chest Thursday-You Are My Treasures

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sorting Saturday - Time Capsule Pictures, Announcements, etc.

This week I went through the box of photos and announcements that were in Frances Lowe's Time Capsule. It quickly became obvious that there was no particular order to the items so I decided there was no need to worry about the original order. I suspect that they had been gone through and looked at repeatedly over the years.

Frances saved baby and school pictures of her grandchildren and great grandchildren along with graduation, wedding announcements and photos, and a few newspaper clippings. They cover the years from 1925 when her first grandchild was born until her death in 1964.

Here's how I went about the sorting process:

1. First a quick pass to lay out the items in order from the box, quickly grouping things by family that obviously went together.
2. Printed out Descendancy Charts for Frances Lowe and her grandfather William Ballinger.
3. Put family groupings of photos and announcements on Frances' Descendancy Chart and the same for William Ballinger's so I could visually get an idea of where the groupings fit within the family.

I am still left with several piles of photos and announcements that I don't know what to do with; it looks like I have a new project. I'll be scanning a selection of them and sending them out to some of the older family members in hopes that someone will be able to identify some of the individuals. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, all of these piles will be placed into some photo envelopes (they have passed the Photo Activity Test) with labels on the outside that I can update as I figure out who some of these folks are.

Next up, another artifact. Think sewing and embroidery.

Here are links to the other posts in this series as well as a couple of related articles:

The Time Capsule
First Steps
The Time Capsule's Top Layer
Part 2
Teacher's Certificate
Teacher's Certificate #2
Baby Shoes
Sewing Anyone?
Help! Do You Know What This Is?
Frances' Necklace
A Bottle of???
Embroidery
More Stuff To Sort
Doilies
Pictures, Announcements, etc.
Dress
Pictures, Announcements, etc.
Preserving the Time Capsule
Sorting Saturday - The Time Capsule is Sorted. What I learned.
COG-Scrapbooking Your Family History! Frances Lowe
Treasure Chest Thursday-You Are My Treasures

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum